Yeah it didn't really strike me until long after the fact that they both lived a pathetically short time in comparison to the previous Doctors.


I think that'd actually make a very interesting story - the idea that this new, grumpier, less kind Doctor is a product of spending over half his life in one place trying to defend a single town. It'd be interesting to see that it's that which has made him a bit bitter and resentful and that he gradually softens as time goes on. I'm not holding my breath tbh because Moffat shows little interest in those sorts of emotional fallout stories normally (Amy's kidnap and losing her baby, Clara's multiple lives were both inexplicably brushed over) but I would love to see it.

Daftest argument I've seen yet. First and foremost we have no idea what the normal lifespan over the regenerations of a Time Lord is. Then of course Eccleston and tennant....lasted 4 years but that may have been 150 years in Time Lord history for all we know. Then of course is a Time Lord 'year' the same as ours? And lastly, Matt Smith clearly states in DoTD that he was already 1200 years old at that point. So he aged 800 years in ToTD not 1094. Now move on ......nothing to see here....

Couldn't care less. Wake me up if you've got a really compelling reason why this is in any way a problem.

I had completely forgotten that Matt Smith's Doctor aged in the last episode, and I thought it was a bit off that Peter Capaldi mentions being 2000 in a new trailer. So much of the last couple of episodes was just plain DULL, it's no wonder this slipped my mind. I'm unfussed about the new Doctor being so much older, and hope the series improves.

You have been bored and disinterested these past few years but yet you chose the name "The War Doctor"?

The Doctors age is all over the place anyway, Old Who he was 953, somehow de-aged back to 901 for New Who, YET later we learn that the 8th Doctor Audio Series IS canon, in which case, the 8th Doctor aged over 1,000 years in a story and was always meant to be OVER 1,000 years old near the start of his time, THEN we have The War Doctor, who comes AFTER 8, and apparently he was young after he regenerated, so that must mean at least a few hundred years passed on with the Time War for him to age that much by the time we see him again.

And then there's the issue of each Doctor surviving for a few hundred years give or take, yet for New Who, The Doctor goes through THREE Regenerations within FOUR YEARS, what, are they his suicide years?

Basically, this is just another excuse to blame Moffat on something, when really, everyone involved with writing Who since 1989 has messed this up in some way or form, all it feels here is that Moffat has aged The Doctor to where he SHOULD be if all the past stuff was true, and just used a lot of blank periods to cover that.

Let's not forget, that under RTD, the same era where The Doctor survived a whopping three years average between Regenerations, he aged Captain Jack by around 4,000 years via Torchwodd!

The Doctor is ageless! Moffatt has seen to that with the Smith-Era!!
The Doctor never knew his age anyway (going back to the Old Series) - he always said a number from his head - 450 years old (Pat Troughton), 700 years old (Tom Baker)......he went on through 4/5 regenerations before announcing he was 905. Doesn't make sense to me. Suddenly he is 2000 years old!!! (Moffat!)
I reckon he's as old as The Face of Boe!!! About 20,000,000,000,000 years old!

He's lost count!

Well then, you totally missed the point of the episode.

I would suggest the writer completely missed the point of the show, and its main character.

I'd agree with you if the whole series had become stuck on a planet and they'd changed the premise of the show (Oh wait, they did that once on Earth with the third Doctor ). However, it was one story and it served to demonstrate how much the Doctor was committed to protecting just one planet. Just how much of himself he was prepared to sacrifice to protect the planet.

SM very much did not miss the point of the character.

Agreed. It was exactly what The Doctor would do, it's amazing to me that anyone would suggest this story missed the point of him.

I agree with the above. I feel a bit cheated by the time jump because we've now missed so much of the Doctor's life it's like we don't even know him any more. Plus his relationship with Clara should, logically, be more like strangers again given that he's had so much time apart from her that he would barely remember her.

As a fan of the classic series it also seems a bit mean to the old Doctors because now their contribution to the Doctor's legend seems almost inconsequential being, for most of them, such a tiny fraction of the Doctor's lifespan.

It's not something I'm going to get hung up about but it does niggle a bit

Given what we've been told about Series 8 in interviews, I think that's the sort of thing they're going for with the Twelfth Doctor. Personally, I'm rather looking forward to that.

Look at what happened to Amy and Rory in S7. 11 their best freind and also their "son in law" was in and out of their lives like a yoyo. Untill that final tragic visit to New York.Wonder how Clara and later Danny are going to have a doctor life / "normal" life balance. How can they have a teaching carrer if they are going all across time and space at a moments notice ?. Answers,theories or ideas on a postcard please.

River had a diary, did we find out what dates that covered in The Doctor's travelling timeline, maybe Clara will have a diary also, as surely Clara can't remember all her adventures with The Doctor.

If you mean Clara's memory of her million or so splinter selves scattered throughout the Doctor's timeline then it's not been made clear how much she remembers but, in that case, her other selves may not have had any memory of the Doctor at the time and any diary would be a separate diary for each splinter so it would take our Clara a lifetime to find and collate even a fraction of the relevant information that way!

If you just mean Clara's memories of her non-splinter self's adventures then I don't see why she should have any trouble remembering. A thousand or so years for the Doctor took barely no time at all for her!

I think it amazing some long-term viewers weren't shocked that the Doctor's entire character was completely re-written to serve a (rather tedious) finale plotline.

Not only did I think it was wrong that he was suddenly a man happy to stay in one place for hundreds of years, but also that throughout the better part of a millenium he lacked the ingenuity to resolve his predicament. That's the Doctor? Really?

And the 3rd Doctor comparison is utterly false - he was banished to earth against his will and spent his time there trying to fix the TARDIS and re-learn how to navigate it so he could continue his travels.

I thought it was patently obvious he was not exactly "happy" to be stuck there, but that he did so because he knew it was right. Perfectly in character. As for not being able to resolve his predicament, that is something that has been used, when needed, as a story requirement from day dot, it makes no sense to suddenly start questioning it now.

I don't think we're going to agree on this one Tony Tiger - for me, none of Matt's final story was in the character of the Doctor. It was just another example of story-before-characterisation, which has been a central problem (for me) for the past four years of Doctor Who.

It's entirely in keeping with the development of the Eleventh Doctor, from the start.

Despite what you believe is the essence of the Doctor, his incarnations have had different attitudes to the ideas of home and family. The Ninth Doctor didn't 'do' domestic, he wasn't a man that would even stay for dinner. The Tenth, on the other hand, was. And for that matter, Tenth showed himself to be more than willing to take the 'slow path' in waiting with Madame Pompadour. It may not be his style, but he accepted the situation for what it was.

Eleven was the incarnation most portrayed as consumed with irrepressible wanderlust, excited over the smallest thing, with no patience for waiting around. And yet, his defining moments included a companion willing to wait two thousand years, and a realisation that he could have what most would consider a family, a wife, and a home to come back to when he wanted it. His climactic moment, his turning point in Day of the Doctor, was the realisation that his planetary home still existed, and he actually wanted to get back to it.

People notice the big plot-arcs, but miss the slower, smaller moments of character movement. Eleven's was all about finding 'home'.

Same here.

The fancy-fancy storytelling of the last few years has distanced me totally from the series, to the extent that I had totally forgotten the Doctor being aged hundreds of years while stuck on yet another semi-Victorian planet full of adorable urchins. For the last few years, DW has been watched once and then immediately deleted from the Skyplus and also from my memory. Other than the Tom Baker scene, none of it has had any impact on me at all.

Interesting stuff. Reminded me of the Power of Three episode. The scenes where he is going out of his head with boredom are very funny, and obviously the whole episode is about whether Amy and Rory are going to settle down to a more ordinary life. But later in the episode he bashfully asks if he can come and stay because he misses them so much.

Even when Eleven is throwing a moody in The Snowmen, he finds a home for himself of sorts in Victorian London, and even though he's disengaged, he still has a connection with the Paternoster Gang as a sort of weird extended family!

This. I was looking forward to seeing how missing out on her baby's childhood would affect Amy's character in the second half of Series 6, it would have made very interesting drama, especially for Doctor Who. But, as you say, it was mentioned in passing in the finale but other than that...zilch.

Moffat is far more interested in the Doctor's character, to the point where I feel the companions and side characters become mere apathetic chess pieces on occasion. The danger here is that the most alien character in the show then becomes the most emotionally identifiable. Going by what I've read of Capaldi's portrayal, this dynamic is seemingly being altered.
Last edited by JDEsseintes : 04-08-2014 at 13:17

Nobody said he was happy to stay there for hundreds of years. He recognised he had to make that sacrifice to protect that planet. Makes him all the more heroic IMO, especially for an incarnation of the Doctor so unable to sit still for a minute. Perfectly in character to me.

So, you're now complaining when the hero doesn't always have all the answers? What about 10 not being able to solve Wilf's predicament without losing his own life? What about 10 not being able to save Bowie Base One? What about... <endless list of heroic failures for the Doctor>. Not everyone lives all the time, And certainly not the Doctor. Not in SM's era or any other.

My reference to Pertwee's era was a comment on the change in direction for the show - as it would have been for Matt had they chosen to show a couple of series of him defending Christmas. The point is, we didn't get to see most of it, so it didn't affect the premise of the show itself. It clearly did affect Matt's Doctor though.

The main point of my argument is that the things you are being so critical of in SM's era also existed in earlier eras.

Sorry Mulett, your post is yet another example of selective memory and confirmation bias.

While I agree with you about the lack of emotional fallout for the loss of Amy's and Rory's baby, Doctor Who, in common with a lot science fiction and fantasy, is hardly known for its in depth examination of emotional states and consequences. Leave that to soap operas, romantic fiction, literary fiction and serious, gritty dramas set in the real world.

Doctor Who is aimed squarely at a family audience and as such is kept fairly light hearted. Any grimness is kept comfortably in the fantasy aspect of the show (with a few exceptions, like Turn Left) to avoid upsetting the younger viewers.

As for your comment about companions, I think it's ironic that some here would argue the exact opposite; that Doctor Who has become too much about the companions' stories.

I'm not saying SM's era is perfect, just that the same sorts of criticisms can be levelled at other eras and other dramas.